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With the announcement of the closure of WildStorm imprint at DC and the retiring of the WildStorm name, it isn't just another in a long list of comics imprints that have ended over the years. In its 18 year run WildStorm has been a vital part of several revolutions in commercial comics, and changed the game in many ways -- Rob Liefeld's post below gives a succinet run down of some of the highlights.

Founded by Jim Lee as one of the original six Image Studios (along with Marc Sillvestri's Top Cow, Todd McFarlane's McFarlane Productions, Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios, Jim Valentino's ShadowLine and Erik Larsen's Highbrow Entertainment), WildStorm immediately established itself as one of the most commercial, with huge sellers like WildCATS and Gen 13. A series of developing fan favorite artists, including of course Lee himself, but also J. Scott Campbell, Joe Madureira and Humberto Ramos, kept popularity up, while the creator owned Homage imprint delivered such strong properties as Astro City and Leave it To Chance.

Although known first for their art, by the end of the decade, WildStorm was really becoming known for some of the most daring mainstream writing of the period, with genre-defining work by Warren Ellis and Mark Millar, strong adventure material by Jimmy Palmiotti and Ed Brubaker, as well as daring experiments like Automatic Kafka, a book by Joe Casey and Ashley Wood that people are still figuring out.

And then there was America's Best Comics, an new line of comics written by Alan Moore that would introduce the world to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Tom Strong, Promethea and Top Ten, the superhero police procedural. And our favorite, Jack B. Quick, the boy inventor who solved science's greatest non problems.

Of course, there are dark parts to the legacy as well, all of which will be trotted out and discussed at length, we're sure. But for now, we asked creators and staff for some of their good memories, and this is what they came back with.

Image Comics house Top Cow has confirmed that they are resurrecting their Minotaur Press imprint, which will be a home for "darker, more nuanced stories." A previous version of Minotaur was once home to such books as Obergeist by Tony Harris and Dan Jolley and Felon by Greg Rucka and Matthew Clark. The new version kicks off with Echoes by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Rahsan Ekedal and Last Mortal written by Filip Sablik and John Mahoney with art by Thomas Nachlik. PR below:

Via Image.

Via PR, here's Image's schedule for Baltimore Comic-Con:

ComiXology app for iPads, iPhones and Ipods. IDW has a bunch of storefronts via iVerse, while Dark Horse mostly sells comics through their own standalone apps. New Image comics are selling for $1.99, which is about industry standard. Initial offerings include CHEW, YOUNGBLOOD, and SAVAGE DRAGON. In case you're wondering what to get first, Chris Sims has a good guide to what to download.

Too early for Halloween plans? Not really. The Walking Dead TV show debuts on Halloween at 10 PM ET with a 90-minute opening episode. Based on Robert Kirkman's comics, the show follows the adventures of the survivors of a zombiepocalypse, and stars Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal, Shane Walsh, and Sarah Wayne Callies. A four-and-a-half minute trailer was also released, and we would absolutely set our DVR for this while we were out trick or treating!

Judge Barbara Crabb has made a decision following the June court appearance by Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane over profits for the characters Dark Ages Spawn, Tiffany and Domina. Gaiman held that these cast-members of the Spawn-i-verse were derivative of Medieval Spawn and Angela (characters that he co-owns, as ruled after the epic 2002 court battle), thus he was entitled to half the profits from these characters. McFarlane held the opposite and had refused to provide information on the profits. Judge Crabb sided with Gaiman, citing the similarity of the characters in a decision (readable here) which shows she spent a lot of time reading up on Spawn:

DAOMU, a hot Chinese graphic novel/"transmedai" series about a tomb raider, is coming to the US via Image. PR below. Image Comics and Concept Art House announced plans to release a series of Daomu...

Dark Horse Given that pretty much all of the Spartans died at the Battle of Thermopylae - which was sort of the point - people have been speculating for years about how Frank Miller would wring a sequel out of his hit Dark Horse graphic novel and movie 300. Today, at Comic-Con, the answer came out. The sequel, XERXES, will actually take place at exactly the same time on another battlefield of the same war.

Chew! Turf! Choker! Viking! Haunt! Books with more than one syllable titles like The Walking Dead. And Ziggy Marley. It's all below: CREATORS   You'll find a surplus of Image creators on hand at booth #2729. The stupendous talents joining Image include GLEN BRUNSWICK, KODY CHAMBERLAIN, KIERON GILLEN, BRYAN JL GLASS, ROB GUILLORY, PHIL HESTER, GREG HORN, JASON HOWARD, ANDY KUHN, ERIK LARSEN, JOHN LAYMAN, ROB LIEFELD, DAVID MACK, DEREK MCCULLOCH, JAMIE MCKELVIE, MINK, RYAN OTTLEY, PAOLO PARENTE, CLIFF RATHBURN, JIMMIE ROBINSON, STEPHEN SCOTT, KRIS SIMON, BEN TEMPLESMITH, JIM VALENTINO and CORY WALKER. WE'LL ALSO HAVE SIGNINGS WITH JANE WIEDLIN, BILL MORRISON, JONATHAN ROSS, TOMMY LEE EDWARDS, TIM SEELEY, JOE KELLY, KEN NIIMURA, NICK SPENCER and more!

The NY Times has the scoop on a new Image imprint to be headed up by Robert Kirkman</a>. Skybound will allow Kirkman to take a more hands-on role in mentoring and editing, and offer creators an advance and marketing, in exchange for a percentage -- so it's kind of like an agency AND an imprint.

A scary chicken graces the cover of a CHEW variant edition available at Comic-Con.